Shoichi Okinaga, chairman of the trustee board and president of Teikyo University, plans to resign the chairmanship over a scandal involving backdoor admissions, university sources said Saturday.
Okinaga, 68, will remain as university president, the sources said. His son Yoshifumi will take over the chairmanship Jan. 1.
The education ministry instructed Okinaga late last month to conduct an internal investigation into allegations that his relatives collected large sums in "donations" from families of students who took examinations to enter the university's medical department before the exam results were released.
The relatives allegedly began gathering the donations a few years ago. The donations are said to have totaled more than 1 billion yen each year.
Okinaga's relatives allegedly approached parents of students who applied to the medical department, saying they would make arrangements to ensure that the students could enter the university.
They then received amounts ranging from 30 million yen to 50 million yen, according to the sources.
If a student failed the exams, the entire amount was returned or a portion of the donation was returned after "campaigning costs" of several million yen were deducted, the sources said.
If the student succeeded, the entire amount was kept, they said.
Graduates and their relatives said the timing and amount of donations requested varied, even among students who took the exams at the same time. They said that as they did not know the results of their exams, they did as they were told.
In reference to the education ministry's instructions to conduct the investigation, the university has said it would compile the results of its probe before the end of the year.